Thanksgiving Special: Great Finds (Products, Apps, Media)

What is it about this writing style that's so slippery that I just can't get— it's like a TikTok feed. I can't get out of it, you know? And so I would say it's like more like a door where you kind of gotta go knock and, and take a leap of faith that there is something on the other side of this. You can't see exactly what you're gonna get until the door opens. All right.

We're live. Cool sweatshirt. Um, what's going on?

That's an evolution for you because you are not the man at creating space.

I was not a space creator. Uh, that's, that's come with you know, some gray hairs and wisdom is, is this idea. So I'm glad I did it because shit's hitting the fan today. And, you know, I'm just hoping that— I told you before this, I am hoping that, uh, you know, my, my safety, my savings, my under the mattress savings of good luck needs to be cashed in today. I'm just, I'm reaching under the mattress. I'm hoping it's still there. I feel like I put it there. I'm hoping that good luck is still there. I need it today.

Well, okay, so I've got So what we're going to— we're going to talk about products and media that we like. But— and I have a couple of— I got one thing in particular that's going to make a difference on your day today, actually. Okay. We can talk about it later. But so today's episode is we're going to talk about products and media that we've consumed throughout the year that we think are cool because I like talking about gadgets and media. And so do you. The stuff that you talked about last episode was actually quite amazing. That article about data and how it's easy to, uh, read data incorrectly. Yeah.

It's just kind of like a great find. It's kind of, is that the idea? Great finds. These are great finds we've had this year, whether it's a product or it's a piece of content. Great finds. I think that's in the, the Thanksgiving spirit. It's like, you know, being thankful for it, but also people have time over they, hopefully people are creating a little space. You know, you, you spend some family time and, uh, but, but people have time over the holidays and this is a good chance to either buy this as a gift for yourself or somebody else, or to just check something out that you haven't tried before.

All right, well, let's start. Do you, uh, you name one and I'll name one, or I can name a couple. What do you wanna do?

Okay, let's do, let's do, I think we both have an app that we really like. Uh, two different apps. So let's do the category of apps. So what's a great find you had that's an app this year?

Okay. Unfortunately, a lot of things I might name are gonna involve fitness. A lot of them are gonna be money related.

It's a fitness influencer life, bro. Yeah.

What are you fasting? You're doing 16:8, or you're doing more intense than that?

I do— I do 16:8. So basically I'll stop eating at 8 PM and I'll eat again at noon.

Right. So that means 16 hours not eating, 8 hours eating. And when you eat in your 8 hours, are you like, you know, eating kale salads, or you eat whatever you want in those 8 hours? What do you—

I don't eat whatever I want. I usually eat Meat and vegetables. That's what I, I work hard to get meat.

Do you portion size or no portion sizing within that 8 hours? You're fine. You just eat till you're full.

Um, yeah, I, I portion control. Yeah, definitely. I, I eat very, yeah, for sure. I try to eat 2,500 calories. Oh, okay. A day.

Good, good. Um, all right. So I have, uh, anything else on Zero? I think that's a, that's a good one. I have, I've tried the app as well. Uh, I like it. It's a super clean interface. It's like, I, I like apps that just do one thing really well and that's what that does. Um, okay, here's an app. I think I've talked about this, but I got big into breathwork. And so, uh, there's two apps that if you want to have kind of like a happier life, there's a lot of apps that will distract you. Instagram, TikTok, whatever. There's apps that'll make you more productive, but they'll distract you from the real world. That's like email, Slack, maybe Twitter. Um, and then there's apps that actually center you and ground you. And so my phone had enough of the distraction apps. I had enough of the pro productivity apps where I was lacking was, hey, how can I use this magic wand? That's how I think of my phone. It's a magic wand. I make, I just, I install an app and that's like a spell that I just could do some magic thing. I can get food to appear at my doorstep or I can, you know, summon a car or I can do all kinds of different crazy stuff. I can put my, you know, my mom thousands of miles away, her face can show up on my phone. Well, this one gets me grounded. And so there's two apps I wanted to call out. One, I think we've talked about before, it's called the Five Minute Journal. Um, I ended up meeting the guy who, who, who made this app.

It's just, I didn't know that was an app. I thought it was a notebook.

There is a notebook and then there's the app.

The app's, I think, more popular.

Oh, that's cool. It's a paid app. I think it's $3 or $5 or something like that, which is so funny because when I saw that, I was like, ah, I don't pay for apps. And I was like, wow. Like my threshold for paying for shit on a phone is so low compared to like, You know, a parking, it's a parking meter, but I get to use this app forever that some guy created and coded and makes it do all these things. So $5. And what it does is you open it up and it basically just has like a quote while it loads. It's always a good quote. They do, they have good selection. And then it basically says, what are 3 things you're grateful for today? And the act of writing those down is great.

Looking at it. This looks great.

What questions does it ask?

Just says, what 3, what 3 things happened today that you're grateful for? And it's today, it's 3 things that happened today, not like, what are 3 things in your life that you're grateful for? And then you just sort of monotonously, you say, my health, my family, and my friends. It's like, no, what happened today that I'm grateful for? What's a moment of today? It's then it forces you to slow down time cuz you're like, shit, what did I even eat for lunch today? What did I do today? And you, and then you're like, you think of one thing and you're like, God, there must have been something more than that that I'm grateful for. You kind of suck at it the first day and you suck at it the second day. By the third day, something happens during the day and you're like, ah, I'm gonna write this in the app tonight.

Um, like that's the thing.

And so it forces you during the day to actually take note of what you're grateful for, which makes you a more grateful person. All right.

So that's one app. So, uh, let me just tell you something really quick. So Andrew Huberman, one of the things on my list, Andrew Huberman recently had a new video come out, come out called The Science of Gratitude and How to Build a Gratitude Practice. Andrew Huberman was on our podcast. He's got this amazing pod— YouTube channel where he talks about the science behind different things and how you can use it to help you. And his latest thing is on gratitude. And he says that he's been doing gratitude and I don't want to get into the science, but basically there's something about like the prefrontal cortex and how gratitude actually releases dopamine and it's proven to make you more motivated and happy. And he said a lot of people, including him, did exactly what you did. And he goes, I think that works. But we have loads of studies that show that the actually slightly more effective way is to do one of two things. And I believe those— it is you try. So the most effective thing is that you, you read or you remember, you, you read something that someone has written to you. And so someone's expressing gratitude to you. Of course, that's not entirely practical. Right. And so there's a few things that you can do. The first thing is that you can think of a story when someone was helpful to you. And if you, if you focus hard enough, it actually feels real. And the second thing that, that, that I do, me and my wife, is every couple of days we have a set time that we sit down and we say, here's what I'm, Thankful. I'm thankful that you did this. And then the second thing that you can do is you can actually think of a story in which—

my wife just do the opposite. We just say everything we hate about each other every 2 days. And, uh, and then that sounds good. Then we get to get it off our chest. Uh, she loves— she's really good at the game. I'm getting better. Uh, it's just, it's a good thing.

It's called the Hateful Eight. Just 8 minutes of just like hating on each other. Um, and, uh, the second thing that you could do is you can think of a story of, of someone being helpful to another person. And they put these guys, I believe, in an MRI and they scan their brain and they watched a movie or a story about Holocaust survivors being helped and surviving. And it like changed something in their brain and it was proven to make them more motivated and happier.

Why is that the most convincing thing ever? Everything that they're like, they did an fMRI study, they scan people while they watch this, the brain lights up like a Christmas tree. It's like the most— like, that's the most— I'm just going to make that up. Whenever I wanna be more convincing with my thing, I'm like, yeah, people who buy my, my power writing course, uh, we've done brain scans. It shows that actually there are, there, you know how there's a part of your brain you can't access? With this course, you actually access it. The scans, they speak for themselves.

I did a Transcendental Meditation thing and, uh, it's like a, a style of meditation and they like, I went to the seminar and they're like, it's proven with brain scans to be different than mindfulness. And I was like, Really?

I mean, like, you're both—

you're, you're kind of the same thing. You're being quiet and just like, like, I don't understand how. But anyway, that's what they said. So, uh, anyway, go ahead.

So that's what you're going to have to do today in order to get over your heartache, your money loss.

I know, I know. We'll have to figure it out.

One more app.

So he's just like mega rich.

So he got like, you know, even with barely putting any money in, he got like kind of loaded and then he sold some of it and was like, okay, I'm gonna turn like half of my, I'm gonna make this huge like ca— kind of cabin out the garage type thing, like a mega garage. He turned it into like this like 20-person sauna plus cold plunge plus like amazing meditation room plus greenhouse and all this other shit.

You went to it?

Uh, no, he's invited me. It's in Canada. I haven't gone yet, but, um, he hosts a lot of people there. He invited us actually, so you're welcome to go anytime. And, um, they do like guided whatever, like microdosing LSD if you want to do that or whatever. No, you can do— you can do anything. You can do anything in this place. Long story short, he got really into breathwork along this journey, and now this is what he does. He's like, I'm gonna— I I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring breathwork to the masses and I do it every morning and it's amazing. So that's my, uh, Othership is the name of the app.

All right. I dig that. All right. I'll, I'll tell you one.

All right.

So there's this subreddit that I go to and I love it. It's called, uh, FatFire. And the idea is people who wanna retire relatively young with a lot of money so they can live a fat life without working. Um, and there's this guy, and so basically if you post on there a lot, the mods, the community leaders of the subreddit will verify your net worth to make sure you're not full of shit.

By the way, did you have a goal like this? Like, I want to retire by X age, or I want to be like, yeah, this wealthy by this age. What was your like— how did you phrase your goal?

I wanted to have $20 million by age 30.

Gotcha. All right.

That's what I wanted. That was my goal. I created that goal when I was in my— when I was like 19 or 20 years old.

I mean, I can't confirm or deny, but, you know, mission accomplished is what I would say.

So I just So FIRE philosophy and FIRE stands for Financially Independent, Retire Early.

So that's— Yes. So you can, you can, you can spend a percentage of your portfolio, of your liquid portfolio, and basically it continues to grow.

Have enough money that the earnings of the, the, the, the sort of compounding earnings on the money being invested in something safe like the stock market, S&P 500 type of thing, can, um, can cover your burn rate. So there's two things that matter. What is the, what is the amount that I have invested in and what is my life burn rate? That's why a lot of people who like FIRE, they go move to like, you know, bumfuck, you know, middle of nowhere and they, they're like, oh yeah, I got rid of my car and it's great. Now I can, you know, I got rid of everything I own and me and my wife, we only eat apple cores and now we retired. It's like, but fat FIRE is different. Fat FIRE is like, nah, I kind of wanna ball out. I'm not trying to like skimp on my lifestyle. So okay, what do I need to achieve and what do I need to optimize while still not giving up like what I find to be enjoyable in terms of lifestyle.

Yeah. So that's how I made up that number. And I don't even, I spend $15,000 a month, so I don't spend even close to that.

By the way, but I, I saw this thing yesterday, which is somebody was saying, they posted like my company, here's what my company's revenues were for the, his name, I think his name's Chris Cantino. Uh, it was like, oh, company's revenues for the first 7 years. And it was like, you know, $0,000, $20,000, $50,000, $150,000, $350,000, $7 million, $21 million, or something like that. Right? I, I'm making it up, but it was some slow build and then suddenly things really take off. And I think they sold their company, it was a soap company, I think, uh, for $100 million. I think I have that right. Is that correct? You know this guy?

No, I know who you're talking about though. He, he tweets great stuff. You said his name, right?

Yeah. So, okay. So, so he tweeted that and I, so it got me thinking. I was like, it, it's true. A lot of success, I would say the common, you know, when success comes through the front door, this is how it arrives slowly and then suddenly.

And when it rains, it pours for sure.

Or, or regardless of 30 or not, after like 8 or 9 years, you give it, give it a decade.

And you, what you need to is total it up in 10 years. How did I do versus one? Counting every year because you're going to lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, win big. And that's off— that's often the path. So I was curious for you, if you did that, is your path similar or if you charted it out for 20s to 30s? I don't know if you want to share the exact or whatever, but yeah, I can share some.

I mean, when I sold, I had saved a like 7 figures. Of course, that includes my wife and I. And she also worked at Airbnb. And so Airbnb went public and she had worked there for a long time. Airbnb went public in December. I sold my company in February. So It was like December 1st and then like February 1st was like that. Those 2 or 3 months was like massive, right?

And so, but prior to that, or that, take her out because we don't want to put her business out there. So let's just talk about you. You in your early 20s, what were you making?

So from age 22 to probably 26 and 27, I paid myself something like $2,000 a month. So in the range, so the first year of business, I probably paid myself $20,000 for the first year. And then I paid myself $40,000 for the next 2 years and then $70,000. And then the last year—

that was $24K a year and then $40K a year. And then you said $70K roughly.

You know, it was like 20, 40, 40, 70. Yeah. So that's 4 years in. And then the year we sold, I paid myself close to $300,000. Right. And I had a few other investments, like some angel investments and like some weird things that kind of paid off. But basically, like, for the longest time, I mean, I was living— I— the way I rigged it was in San Francisco, my rent was only $400 because I rented out this big place and I only had $25 grand in my name and I spent all of it to rent out and furnish this place. And then I rented it out to people who basically subsidized it for me. So I was living like a poor person.

And so I was able to save a little bit of money, living like a wealthy person, really. You were living in a place and it was only costing $400 a month, which is great example by the way, because there's a lot of people that will be like, oh, I wanna move to San Francisco, but I can't afford it. All you're saying to me is I lack creativity and resourcefulness because what you did is available to everybody. Go find a place that's at market or slightly below market price. And what you did, I think, is you cut a deal with the landlord. You were like, I'll never call you for anything. Yeah, I told him breaks, I'll fix it. I think you lived there for like a decade or some shit and you never called.

Like, like 7 years.

You never spoke to the person?

Yeah, I never saw him. I had not once have I ever seen him.

He showed up at the house. You wouldn't know who the heck it is.

I would not. I don't even remember what he looks like. I couldn't even tell you what he looks like. I think his name was Chris.

And so you cut this deal and you were like, look, I'm— you basically became the landlord.

If somebody said, hey, which of your friends shot a BB gun into the toilet? I feel like, I feel like, oh, you know, Sam, Sam's a great, he's a great guy.

I bought, we bought like an airsoft gun or something. We're like, let's see how strong this is. We, we didn't wanna shoot it in the house cuz it went through the couch. Uh, anyway, anyway, it, yeah. And so at this point, yeah, so it was a slow build. It took like 5, 6, 7 years. But then what's crazy is I'm 32 now. I started hustling at age 20, probably 20, like making like real money on my own, like livable money. And at this point, at age 32, I'll make more this year from a couple like side investments, like a real estate deal that I did. I'll make more this year than collectively all of my salaries combined while working at The Hustle.

Exactly. And that's, that's the exact same, same case for me. And I think that's actually really common. And I think The reason I bring that up is because A, it's interesting to me. B, I think that's really comforting to people cuz when you're in it and you're not making any money and it looks like other people are all making hella money, it feels, it could feel very bad and you can question if you're on the right path or not. And this doesn't mean you're definitely on the right path, but it means when this path of entrepreneurship works, that's commonly what it looks like. So, Don't be surprised. Um, all right, so let's get back to—

which, by the way, um, when I was getting going, I was always so envious of other people, like my friends. I'm like, fuck, you got a job at Google, you make $150 grand a year, and you have all these benefits. I haven't been to the doctor forever. This is awesome. I'm so jealous.

So you'd come to— you'd come to my office and you'd be like, dude, this is your office? I'd be like, yeah, yeah. And then we'd be eating something, you'd be like, like, is this cheese just always available? Whose cheese is this?

They just bring out cheese.

I felt like I would bring it up. You'd be like, look, this cheese is from Whole Foods. This is expensive cheese. I'm like, bro, stop talking about the cheese right now. But it was like, I remember you were noticing all those things in a funny way.

Well, I was like, you guys have an espresso machine?

Yeah. You guys got a women's bathroom?

What the hell is an espresso machine? Yeah. I remember I was like, Freaking out that you had an espresso, espresso machine. I was like, what the hell is this? And I, I remember like I used to take food to go. Um, so anyway, um, yeah, it, it accumulated quickly and I think it, for most people it's, I mean it like, I think that it's basically, it's like you're poor, you're poor, you're poor. And then it's like suddenly it's like, oh, holy crap, I'm not anymore. And you know, you, you have that moment and there's this subreddit called FatFire and they talk a lot about that., and there's this guy who has a series of threads called Confessions of a Hecto Millionaire, and he's doing like 8 parts, and I linked to it in there.

I see part 5 here.

Yeah. And the mods have basically, um, approved it. So basically the mods have like— this guy DM'd him, DM'd his accountants or account information or something, so they like verified that he's, uh, as wealthy as he is. But basically in the beginning thread, he says, you know, I'm worth north of $100 million. I got wealthy originally because I was an employee at a tech company that made me $30 million. And that was like 15 years ago. And then I invested in this and then I did this and then I did this. And I'm going to answer a lot of the questions that I think a lot of people ask here. And the mods have approved that I am who I am. And I'm going to tell you all about work and purpose, my time and routine, why I keep a low profile, how relationships are are complicated, what I spend on a monthly basis, um, what my investment in portfolio management is. And it's incredibly fascinating. I love this stuff where you get behind the scenes of people who you normally never have access to. And so it's a great series. It's a great thread. Uh, it's awesome.

Awesome. I love it. Great find. Um, okay, let's do some more. So, uh, what do I want to do?

Okay, let me do, Um, uh, you want me to do, you want me to do a quick one while you're thinking?

Yeah, do a, do a quick one.

Okay. And I can keep rattling, so you just let me know. So, all right, this is a little black hat here, but I'm gonna tell you. So there's this company called, I think it's made by the same company, it's called Web Archive. It's the greatest thing ever. I love Web Archive. And they have got this side project called Archive Today. So archive.today. Have you ever seen this?

Yes, I have seen this.

It is awesome. So if you ever want to read— so there's a bunch of products out there on how to read articles that are paywalled or behind some type of like thing that you can't see them. So there's Outline.com, which is kind of cool. There's this other one that's called 12 Foot and it's called 12 Foot Ladder. And so it basically says, show me a 10-foot—

go over the paywall.

Yeah. So listen to the tagline. Show me a 10-foot paywall. I'll show you a 12-foot ladder. Brilliant, right? Genius. Brilliant. And it doesn't work all the time, but very well.

That's the problem with Torfoot. Yes.

Yeah. Uh, and the Internet Archive is just like a treasure, right? Like it's a nonprofit thing. It's a great way to go look up what did the original version of the Airbnb website look like? You can go to the Wayback Machine, which is something they've created, and you can type in airbnb.com. You can go back and you could see, oh wow, it used to be called Airbed and Breakfast and it was like catered toward conferences cuz that's how they initially got their start and blah, blah, blah. So, you know, the Internet Archive, which is the, the nonprofit behind it, is amazing. They actually bought our friend's company. They bought Xavier's, uh, book company as well cuz they're gonna like, scan all the books and make them available for people and things like that.

So they just, it's, it's amazing. You know, they're based in Inner Sunset, right? Where my office was. That's right.

That's right. Um, okay, let's do some more. Uh, okay. So I basically made a pretty big, and I think at the, at the risk of us sounding like, kind of like overly obsessed with fitness, which is like ironic cuz at least, at least you're ripped. So I think you could get away with being obsessed with fitness. I'm not ripped yet, so it's like a little bit, it's a little bit weird when I talk too much about it. Yeah. But you made a pretty big investment in this because—

and your— and your improvement has been massive.

I basically— when I was—

how much did you weigh when we first started filming? Do you know?

I have no idea, but I basically gained like 40 or 50 pounds over the course of like my last startup and like never lost it.

So I think you weighed— I used to be like 250.

Not 250. I think the most I ever was 225, and I don't even weigh much less than that now.

But it's a different weight though.

It's— yeah, it's like muscle versus fat. It's like converting, right?. So, um, so yeah, I basically, you know, ballooned up again. You know, I used to be whatever, 175 or whatever, and then all of a sudden I'm 225 and felt really bad. And you know, just, it's not healthy. It doesn't look good. All this stuff. I would, when I would see a photo of myself, I'd think that's a bad photo of myself. And after 3 years I'm like, hey, how come all the photos are just bad photos of me? Oh wait, maybe I'm like actually just like massively outta shape here. So I invested in basically 3 or 4 things now. That have paid off, and I'll tell you one that I don't think paid off. So, um, so I think fitness takes a couple things, uh, at least for me, and that's, uh, time. So I was like, okay, what are some things that I, if, if going to the gym is taking too much time, what's a way that I can hack that? So first of all, I built a home gym, so there's no going anywhere. But even me, you could put a, a Peloton right next to me. That doesn't mean I'm gonna ride it. You could put my foot in the straps. It doesn't mean I'm gonna push. Like, I, there was many reasons for many years that I didn't exercise regularly. And so one was just bringing the gym home. Then I got a trainer cuz I said, well, if some dude shows up, I'm not just gonna ignore him. Like I'm clearly gonna like do the workout.

And I think that's the biggest thing that made a difference. I, like, I, I have a friend who is, um, who, who is a wealthy guy and he was like, hey, can you tell me what to do? And I'm like, no man, get a coach for like $250 a month. Yeah. And they'll, and they'll tell you what to do and you don't think, you just do what they say. And he was like, that's really expensive. I'm like, dog, you live in a $4 million house. Like, why do you like your, your body's your house and you're not gonna spend $300 or something to fix it?

Yeah, that's wild. Um, my, my dad does that. My dad's like, oh, you spend on this personal trainer 5 days a week? Like, that's crazy. Uh, I have this trainer I found in India. He just does it on Zoom and he's only $4 an hour. I was like, $4 an hour? He's like, yeah, he wanted $6, but I got him down to $4. He was so proud. And I was like, oh, that's, I mean, that's amazing.

Okay, is it good? It's such an Indian thing to do.

I don't back it up. Same.

I did.

I think that I, I vouch for that.

I made it super convenient. So I did home gym and I brought— I had a trainer come to my house. I paid the extra to make sure that that happened. Um, okay, so now I'm doing the workouts. Okay, cool. Now how do I do it where I actually enjoy it? Well, I invested in making the space nice. So like I went to your gym and I was like, wow, this feels great. I need to get a floor like this. And I bought these rubber tiles and I did all this stuff to make the gym feel better. And I like got like the sound system and I did a bunch of things to make the environment one where I would not dread going there. I would enjoy, I would want to go there. And, uh, a bunch of things like that. So those were all great investments. I felt like great finds for me was like these little rubber tiles and it took time and energy to research these. And I didn't outsource this. I was like, no, I need to find the best one because I want this to feel a certain way. And I, I crafted that kind of vision for myself. Same thing, I just got a sauna, set it up yesterday, did the first sauna session in it and I'm like, this is amazing.

That's sick, right?

Already, already this is one of my great purchases of the year and I just have had it for one day. I got this Clearlight sauna, infrared sauna. And I know that some people are like, don't do infrared. And some people are like, buy this other brand instead, whatever.

No, Clearlight's good.

Clearlight's a great brand. You know, but some people are like, you should do the dry sauna, not the infrared. From what I could tell, um, it's totally fine. And it's, uh, importantly it fit into my life, whereas the other one would've required like a whole bunch of like waiting for like a bigger space and electrical and all this changes to be made in order to work.

As long as, as it can get hot enough, it's good.

Yeah, exactly. So those have been for me the best find. Now here's the worst, the worst buys, the worst things I did. I— anything that I attached to my wrist has just failed. So, um, I bought an Apple Watch, um, lost it. All right, it got stolen slash lost. I don't know what happened. It was at the office and it was gone. Um, second one, uh, bought a Fitbit, lost it. Whoop Band, have it, battery's dead. Don't charge it regularly enough for it to be useful. Um, so everything I've tried that's like a fitness tracker that is like a wearable device. It doesn't work for me because I'm too disorganized and lose shit and don't keep things charged and ready for the morning and then charge it for sleep. I had an Oura Ring. I lost that too. Uh, I have, I have failed on like 5 wearables this year, so I got that same— count myself out on that.

Do you wear a wedding ring?

Lost my wedding ring as well. So that's, you know, for bonus points.

Uh, dude, that's why I wear these like, uh, $20 rubber ones.

Yeah, mine was only a $60 wedding ring anyways, so I didn't feel bad. I mean, the sentimental loss, yeah, but, you know, I kind of knew that, hey, I don't know if I'm a ring guy. I never wore a ring in my life. Yeah. And sure enough, just taking it on and off ended up—

I lost mine the first week.

So yeah, I lost mine on my honeymoon. The world's best husband. All right. Okay, let me give you a different one. Have— here we go. Let's shift to media. Great podcasts, articles, YouTube channels, whatever that we really like. I, I have a whole category called canceled comedians, which is like, there's a whole bunch of people that I love their content. They're canceled by, you know, society, but I love— they're still— they're just as funny as they were before everybody found out that they like, you know, like to have sex with 18-year-old girls or whatever. Like, um, so there's this guy Chris D'Elia who got canceled, I don't know, a year ago. I found him really funny before. I find him really funny now. And he also has these little, like, almost like inspirational moments in between the comedy that I love. There's this video he has called Life Rips. Have you heard this video?

No, but I love him.

All he's saying is like, uh, you know, this shit was happening in my day or whatever. And he's like, he has this phrase, life rips, which is like, he's saying like, life is awesome. And he's like, just remember, he's like, life rips. And then he, he, he tells the story. It's just inter— he's a great storyteller, amazing storyteller. He tells a story about life rips. It's a feel-good moment. It's a reminder that actually, yeah, you're right. Instead of focusing on my problems all day, let me just focus on the fact that life actually really freaking rips. And, um, and then he, he brings that in, he brings that as a callback into a bunch of other podcasts that he does where he'll tell a little story. He's like, you know, this is a life rips moment. And, um, just that philosophy has like made me really happy. He does this thing also where some, he'll be recording the episode and you, you'll relate to this. He's, he's kind of like, um, I think a lot of great entrepreneurs and artists are this way where they're like sort of like perfectionists in a way. Like they want things to go well. They want well, well-made stuff. And so let's say there's a technical problem where he's like, um, he's like, let's pull up that clip. And then like the computer crashes or like somebody walks by and unplugs his microphone like midway through or whatever, like kicks out the put power cord to the lamp. And instead of in that moment getting mad, he just has— he just replaced it with this thing where he just goes, "Yes! The cord ripped out of the wall." He'll just be like something— he'll be like, "Yes, we can't find the file." Or he'll be like, "Yes, dude. Yes, we absolutely can't show the thing I'm talking about. Yes, nobody has any idea what I'm trying to say." And he just like, instead of being like, "Oh no, this sucks," which is like such a pattern that we can fall into, He just does this little yes thing and I kind of stole it in my daily life. My wife hates it. She thinks it's like very annoying that I do this. Like she doesn't understand what I'm doing. She doesn't know the reference. Now she will, but it, oh, she doesn't listen to the podcast either, so she, she still probably won't. But it's such a hack, dude. It's such a hack to just, instead of just letting this little inconvenience, this little thing that went wrong, fuck up your mood. Just like rewire the response to something that's almost, it's like sarcastic, but it actually becomes real by the time you do it. Jocko, who's this guy who goes on Joe Rogan, he does the same thing. He's just like crazy, I don't know, Navy SEAL type dude, super hardcore. And his whole thing is around like, you know, pain is good. And so like, he'll be like, um, you know, oh, you got shin splints? Good.

Like, just run. I love that. It gets me fired up.

He'll be like, you know, Oh, you know, your Uber ride didn't show up? Good. Time to have a hike. It's like he replaces, "Oh, that sucks" with "Good. Time to get tough," or "Good. Gotta go earn more money. Lost all mine." Like, whatever. It's almost comedic how extreme he is with it. But not gonna lie, this shit actually works, and so that's my content recommendation.

Do you have, um— All right, I've got a bunch, but do you have any type of cardio machine? At your house? Treadmill. Yeah. Um, and a rower. All right.

Yeah.

You do have a rower?

I have like a light— you have like a rower that makes you feel like you're on the Swiss Canal or whatever. I have like a rinky-dink, you know, $120 Costco rower.

All right. I don't think you're gonna wanna do this then, but I was gonna say tomorrow. So I've been doing—

I'll do it on my shitty rower.

I've been doing these things where like, I'm like, all right everyone, this Sunday, 60-minute row, post your results.

Such a, such a fitness influencer move, motivating others.

And so do you, well, do, do you have a bike?

You don't have a bike? Do you have a bike? I have a bicycle, not like a, not a spin bike.

I have like an actual bike. It might be easier if you do in the bike. So I'm gonna get up early tomorrow, like 7:30 or maybe 7, and I'll get this thing done and just post your results and be like, I just, and so I tweet it out. I go, tomorrow is a 90-minute day. We gotta, because, and people are like, isn't that boring? And I'm like, yes, that is the point. We should go through pain tomorrow before we get thankful. Right. So if you wanna do it with me, uh, do a 90-minute, any type of 90-minute steady cardio.

Uh, 90 minutes.

Good. I don't think you—

no one there to watch my kids. Well, I don't think you could— 90-minute bike ride with Sam.

Well, that's why you gotta get up really early to do it. You gotta like go through hard, uh, some hardship. I don't think you're gonna be able to run for 90 minutes, but even like a brisk walk, honestly, for 90 could work. But just like, as long as your heart rate's like 140-ish. Um, all right, let me, Nate, let me, let me, let me tell you, uh, 5 or 4. I'm gonna go fast on some bits of media. The first, This happened earlier this year. There's this amazing video of Rose Namajunas, this awesome UFC fighter. But the reason she's interesting is she's like really quiet and introspective and seems like a sweetheart, not like a fighter. And there's this amazing video of her about to fight this badass woman from China who just looks like the Terminator. And she's repeating to herself, I'm the best, I'm the best, I'm the best. And when I first saw that, I teared up. It's the greatest. It pumps me up. It's amazing. The second thing, primitive technology.

By the way, can I just give a recommendation there for people who don't follow the UFC? They're gonna watch this, they're gonna be like, whatever, uh, you know, if even if they went and watched it, it wouldn't have the same emotional resonance. It resonated for you because you know how much of a Terminator that other girl is. You know Rose's backstory and how she struggles with anxiety. She's not a bravado type of person. So for her to say, I'm the best, it's not bravado and trash talk. It's literally self-talk so she, you know, can perform, be her best, and, and not let anxiety get the best of her. So you know the backstory, but I think everybody should have these go-tos, these, this stash of like inspiring moments that you were there for, that you know the context, you know the backstory, and then you could just put them— it's like that flooding thing I was talking about earlier. You could just go back to it and you could instantly get that feeling. Um, and you should just have a well of these, which I like.

I, I think that people should know that. I mean, like, successful people— I don't know if people consider me successful or not, but I know that, like, way more successful people than I do this. But I rely on, like, like, I'll, like, read a book about someone who I admire, and I'm like, how would this person react to this situation?

Totally.

Like, I, I do that all the time. Or I'm like, sometimes I'll even do it with, like, UFC fighters. I'm like, this guy just got punched in the face and he got up. Like, I can do it. Um, so I like that Rosnami Yunus thing. The second thing is Primitive Technology. Have you heard of Primitive Technology?

No. What's that?

Click the link. It's in there. So this guy has 10 million subscribers on YouTube. In his videos, of which there are— how many are there? Maybe 50?

You've talked about this guy. He's like a caveman.

So I'm on that video. It starts as he's just panning. The camera is just panning at this, just a spot on the ground in the middle of the forest. It's clear, like, there's nothing here. I'm gonna build a little hut here.

Now click to the end. Click to the end.

He's like a clay hut with the fireplace in there, with a fireplace and a chimney.

Yes, and the whole video he doesn't say a single word.

All you do is— he literally has bare hands.

Yes, just building it, and then he'll like make like a hammer out of like a some— he'll make rope and then he'll make a hammer out of rope and a stick or a rock and a stick.

Do you know this guy's backstory? Like, this guy looks just like everybody I went to Duke with. Like, who is this guy and why does he do this?

So it's in Australia, I believe, and he owns this land. And so if you go to his about page, he just— it just says, where is this? And he goes, Queensland, Australia. Do you live in the wild? I don't live in the wild, but I love going out into the land to do these projects.

Yeah.

And so he doesn't talk much. He doesn't do anything. His channel has gotten 1 billion views, and all he's doing is building, like, dude, like, there's another one.

I'm watching him make fire just with this. He's just rubbing his hands together like this with a stick in between, and he just made a fire while you were talking.

It's so relaxing. It's so awesome. I love it.

I love it. Be honest, do you actually want— because I see this, I'm like, this is so cool, and I'll like click through one, and then I'll be like, oh, this is just something I'm gonna go tell other people about. I don't— I would never actually sit here and watch this for 30 minutes.

I've watched all of them. Do you have Apple— do you have Apple TV?

Uh, no, I don't, but I have Apple TV.

So my version of TV is YouTube. So first thing when I sit down on the couch, I go straight to YouTube, and I'll just watch like a 30— this 30— it's like, this is like that TV show How Stuff's Built. Do you remember that?

Yeah, but you do it in the background, or you actually just watch, pay attention to them.

Yeah, maybe I'll like be talking to Sarah or cooking. Yeah. I'm like, oh my God, wait, watch this. Look what he's doing. Yeah, maybe it's in the back. I mean, do you— I don't actually sit down and really watch TV unless it's a movie or The Challenge or The Challenge.

Okay, so this is amazing. Okay. Primitive technology.

Yeah, I watch this guy.

He is amazing. He looks at pro athletes and actors and he— and he's a— I guess he's a— I think he's a doctor. I don't know what his background is. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about, and he tells you what steroids he thinks different people are on.

I watch these, and every time I do, I regret so much. I'm like, what a waste of my life I just did. Um, but I— he comes up in my feed, and I'm like, oh, I know that person. Yeah, are they on steroids? And then like 30 minutes later, I'm like, I cannot believe I've let this be in my brain for the last 30 minutes. What a waste of my brain.

It's interesting though, because he'll explain like the science behind it. He's like, you— he's like, a lot of people think that this athlete is doing EPO you wouldn't do EPO because the way that your body works is this, this, this, and this. And he like— so it's kind of interesting. He goes, but you would do HGH because the way HGH works is it's proven to do— so it's like a science. It's interesting. All right.

And then the gossip— but yeah, there's a little bit of science.

It's gossip from a person who I believe is reputable, uh, not in having firsthand knowledge of the people, but firsthand knowledge in doping. And the final thing I found this book. It has 2 reviews on Amazon, only 2 reviews on Amazon. It's amazing. And so apparently they— in the fore— in the foreword, they say that's one of the most popular books in Russia. But I didn't know that. And they translated it into English. So these 2 journalists from the USSR in 1933 made a deal with the US government that they would let them come in and spend 3 months doing a road trip.. And so they saved up a little bit of money. They came here and they bought a camper van and they spent 3 months traveling America, talking to people with nothing to do, really. Just all they just wanted to learn about America. And from an outside perspective, they show what makes America special. And it's incredibly fascinating because we take a lot of things for granted and they criticize America. And this is in the 1930s. So this is— this point is particularly, particularly true. They criticize like our race relations and things like that. This is like, this is crazy how people treat each other. But there is a lot of good, including they say there's something about Americans that I've never seen ever before, which is they always think that they are going to overcome any adversity and they always are optimistic about like some situation. And also, oddly, they're friends with their bosses. So like they work together to achieve things and they don't like, like they're friends. Like you can be friends with your boss and you cannot hate them or want to rob from them. And people are— and it's a wonderful book. It's written in the '30s. It's awesome. So that's my book. Oh, it's called Little Golden America.

Nice. That's great. You've read the whole thing?

I've— yeah, I'm finishing it up now. And I actually posted a link on my Twitter where it's free, like a PDF.

Okay, cool. I like that. Okay, I have a couple quick ones. So a Chrome extension that I'm liking a lot, it's called Everyday. And it's basically a habit tracker. So, um, so if you go to the website, I think it's called Everyday. Let me just find the everyday.app, I think is the thing. Um, look it up. And basically you just say what you wanna do. So you're like, oh, I wanna, like, for me, for example, I have morning routine. I have clean lunch, clean dinner. Um, I have workout. I have my, uh, uh, gratitude thing.

And then I have, oh, cool.

That's it. And so, and then basically what it does is it just lets you create a streak. So you just say, yes, I did it this day. I, uh, I'm, I intentionally skipped it. I'm allowed to skip it, or I missed. And it just keeps track of your streaks and it creates this awesome green grid of like, as you do your habits, you get this really satisfying completion of like your grid being green. It just shows I'm doing the things I said I wanted to do, which for me is, and most people is all of the challenge. All of the challenge is not, Oh, I just don't know what to do. It's, I'm not doing the shit I know I should do. And, um, so this is just, you know, a great tool. And I get, I think it's great because it's Chrome extension. So it's in your face. You don't have to remember to check it. It's every time you open a new tab in your browser, it's gonna remind you, oh yeah, I could, I knock that out right now. You know? Yeah, I could actually just do that right now and I could, I could get it done. Um, so it's, uh, I actually have my own Chrome extension and I've replaced it with this one. That's how good it is. So, um, you know, This is one of my—

one of my— I'm downloading it now.

Okay, let me give you a couple other things that I think are really cool. You showed me this, Camo. It's an app for your iPhone. Now, we spent a lot of money and time— you may not be able to tell right now because we're both not in our main studio, or I'm not in my main studio. You're in a different spot.

I look good. I know, you're traveling. No, I'm not traveling.

Look, you've been traveling, so we, you know, on different videos we have different level of quality or whatever. But we did the, you know, we both tried on our own and then we hired people to like, hey, uh, how do people get that fancy-ass blur and like super HD video?

It's so hard.

And they're like, oh, you gotta buy this, uh, Canon, uh, which one? 50D, 40D, 60, 70, which, which D do I buy? Okay, I'll get this one. Oh, then I need like some kind of, um, cord or like a capture card. How am I gonna do that?

It's, it's so much pain in the butt.

Batteries. Oh, but the battery's gonna die during the episode, so you have to actually get a, a double battery or a dummy battery. Pain in the ass. So, and it's thousands of dollars for you. The camera itself was like $1,500, something like that. So it's really expensive. And you were like, oh dude, I'm just using this iPhone app called Camo that just, you just download the app and then, uh, it just uses the native iPhone, like portrait mode to make your camera look good. And you were like, look, I'm just using my phone. I look just as good as you. And I was like, yeah, I'm using the $2,000 thing and it's really hard to set up.

And look, I'm traveling and I just bring this with me cuz it's my phone. And I was like, oh my God, it's, I think it's $40 or $50. I, I don't know if it's, is it $30? Maybe it's $30.

I don't remember.

Actually, I don't remember. I actually think in the new iOS, it's just, this is just baked in actually. I think they, I don't think you even need this anymore. Um, but for now, and if you, if I don't, if I'm wrong about that iOS update, you mean it's coming out soon? Like in the new iOS, there's— it's gonna be part of the native camera, so you don't need an app to do this, I think.

You mean, but one coming out soon or one out now?

I don't know, now, soon, something, um, something like that. So, but in the meantime, this app Camo is kind of amazing, uh, great business by whoever's doing this, and amazing timing because the whole world went remote and everybody wants to look good. So, uh, that's definitely one of the best products.

The analogy we made, or someone made, is having camo, it's like in the '70s and '80s and '90s when it mattered that you wore a suit. Having a camo is like showing up in a meeting in a nice suit.

Exactly. Exactly. So, so I think that's a great product. Okay. I'm going to give you a YouTube channel. So you did More Plates, More Dates. The binge I've been on is, is this like kind of embarrassing? Almost. It's these old school direct sales seminars. So I'm like, okay, how do I, um, I don't know why I like this because I'm not even doing anything that has direct sales. Like, there's not a product I sell that's direct sales. I'm not a salesman, never been one. Uh, but I'm just like fascinated with the art of persuasion and sales. Which ones? And so, um, so there's a couple that are really good. Last night, like, for example, I fell asleep last night while listening to it. If you just search Tony Robbins sales rare, and it's like, uh, there's two. There's one where he explains how he sold, how he got his career started. He talk about this much. He got his career started selling audio cassettes, like music, music tapes to people. Um, you know, to, to people. And he would do these like, you know, he'd go and he's like, yeah, like the way we would do it is a woman would reach out to the potential customer and they would say, we'd love to have, uh, we'd love to give you a free gift and, um, we'd love to tell you a little bit about our company. And they'd be like, free gift? He's like, yeah, it's a free gift. It's usually worth about $100. Um, and we'd love to give it to you. And you know, if you, if you'd meet with our, our person, and then Tony was that person and he would be like, he would walk through the step-by-step thing and he'd be like, I would say this and why am I saying that? I'm saying that because blah, blah, blah. Here's the thing about how people buy. He's like, and he's got his whole philosophy and he even says in this thing, he's like, you know, would I do this now?

No.

'Cause I feel like it's a little too pushy. And, but I'm always the type where I wanna know what's the real potent shit that works. I wanna know the borderline illegal version of selling and persuasion. And then it's up to me to decide, Am I gonna keep the knob on level 12 or do I wanna turn it down to 9? But I don't wanna, yeah, looking at this, I don't wanna be at level 6 cuz I was too afraid to ever find out what is, what does maximum persuasion look like?

You know, what is, what's the channel called?

I, I just look at the individual videos. There's not any channel. So like who's, who's it? Gary Halpert Rare or Gary Halpert 1980s or Gary Halpert original seminar. Tony Robbins young, Tony Robbins rare, Tony Robbins original seminar, Tony Robbins direct sales, Tony Robbins infomercial. And I'll go, either I'll just find their material and I'll deconstruct it myself, like what's working. Like we had Craig Clemens on and Craig Clemens comes on the podcast and he's a friend of ours and he's, uh, doesn't, he, he's a great person on the pod, but he doesn't go first. He doesn't talk a lot about his company. So he's got Golden Hippo. They've sold like over, you know, I think he sold over a billion, billion dollars worth of product in his lifetime. Uh, and Golden Hippo will do, you know, over $100 million in sales. But it's like, hey, what Golden Hippo is a holding company. What are the companies underneath? And he doesn't really like go list out the, 13 companies or whatever, however many there are underneath it. Um, and nobody really pushes him for that. And he's kind of like at the made it stage now. But his, he got a start early on doing sales for a guy who's like a dating coach.

And it was like, I bought that.

I know you're dating and like how to, how to, basically it's all different titles that all mean how to get laid. And if it was a wife, it was like how to get the man of your dreams, how to get a husband, how to whatever. And he talk, and so I find these old interviews or old seminars he did with that guy Eben Pagan. And I'll go watch those and I'll see, oh, interesting. He's talking about this headline he wrote and why this headline is amazing and why he thinks it worked. And this other one and why it totally didn't work and what he learned from that. And I just find these to be like, it's like puppy chow to me. It's just, I, I can't stop consuming it even though I really have no direct use for it. Uh, I just love it.

So I'll tell you guys listening, um, Gary Halbert. So the Gary Halbert's this guy, he died somewhat recently from just like a heart attack or something. And he was an amazing copywriter and he might have died in prison or soon after. He was in prison for a handful of years because he sold something.

Ironically, that's the guy I want to learn from. Yes. And the world famous— and that's why he took it too far. Like Wolf of Wall Street. I'll go learn from him. I'm not going to take it as far, but I want to learn from that person.

I think he went to prison for mail fraud or something like that. So basically people bought stuff and he just didn't fulfill it. And so he was just like, I sold it and I just lied. And that's obviously wrong, but you can learn a lot from him. And he's got these amazing things called the Letters from Boron. They're Boron Letters.

Sorry.

Yes.

And so, like, you can go and read it.

He wrote them all by hand because I was just so— and you're going to read it. You're like, why would you? Why is this so good? It's so good if you know why it's so good. It's almost like that.

It's like, it's not, no, it's clearly good. Like you start, you fall down like his slippery slope. You're like, why is this so interesting? Well, yeah. Why do I wanna keep reading this?

Yeah, this is a winner. Um, all right, well, I think, I think we just like laid out a ton of interesting stuff. Uh, Ben, are you there?

And by the way, we should put, uh, links to as much of these as we can in the show notes. I'm also gonna send out a newsletter of just like summarizing these. Um, just on like whatever, my, my own, like my weekly newsletter or whatever, SeanPerry.com. And cuz I think these are actually really good, but most people listening to this, it's probably really fucking hard to be like, what am I supposed to do? Write these down and then go Google all these different things these guys are talking about.

Yeah.

You, you need the links.

What do you think, Ben? Yeah, this is gonna be great. At the bottom of the show notes, we'll just put a long list of all the links so people can find everything. But this was awesome. We're just spewing cool products that we consume.

By the way, I, there's, I, I have half of, you told me about this 2 minutes or you told me before, but I was I was busy. I learned about this premise 2 minutes before the show, and I actually still have like 5 things that I— we didn't even get to. And I know you have like 10 things we didn't even get to. So we may want to do— if people like this, we may want to do one more of these.

I like it. And the point of this is it's supposed to be a Thanksgiving special, right? So you guys are just— if you're fat with turkey, you're sitting on your couch, you, you got some time on your hands, you can just start clicking through all these links, check out all this stuff, buy some stuff, watch some things, have a good time. I think it's mostly free stuff, by the way, that we mentioned.

Yeah, a lot of it is free or very cheap. Um, Ben, I love that, uh, that sales pitch right there. That was great. Who, who, who's— have you been watching these videos too? Are we, are we sharing YouTube accounts? What's going on?

Yeah, I just had to step up my game after you're talking about all this, uh, copywriting and sales stuff.

That's the Mormon in you. You guys are natural salespeople. You guys are the, the world's greatest salespeople. People.

Will Mormon jokes ever get old? No, probably not. That's the— some stereotypes are— we have so few stereotypes we're allowed to access these days that when there is one that feels like it's okay, you just got to hit it over and over again. Good, I'm down. Well, thank you. All right, I'm out. I got to go be with my family.

See ya.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Yeah, you too.